You’ll probably have one of two reactions to Dread Delusion’s artstyle: you’ll either immediately embrace its lurid, retro-inspired world of shimmering, ugly polygons or you’ll instantly recoil, rejecting it wholesale. But I’m here to implore you: don’t run! Dread Delusion is a game that’s purposefully hideous, using the queasy, lurching low-poly geometry of late-90s-era gaming to conjure an atmosphere that’s supposed to feel off-puttingly wrong. It’s horror-adjacent in that regard; but a little bit fantasy, a little bit sci-fi too. Dread Delusion’s Oneiric Isles, as gleefully repellant as they may be, are rich in odd history and even stranger stories, and now – two years after their PC debut – they’re ready for console owners to explore.
Dread Delusion might look familiar (squint and you can understand the early Morrowind comparisons) but, really, it dances to its own discordant song, and there’s nothing entirely like the open world developer Lovely Hellplace has created here; a floating fantasy archipelago where fearsome gods once ruled – until its inhabitants rose up and murdered them all. But before you can venture out beneath its bruise-coloured sky, you’ve some storytelling of your own to do. Awakening in a squalid prison cell, you’re guided through a series of evocative origin stories; make some choices for your character and it’ll impact their present-day skills.
Maybe your story started on the grim, unforgiving streets, as you battled through hardship to become a paranoid fixer, able to charm your way through situations where your agile body or lockpicking proficiency might fail. Maybe you were born with fists swinging, your fighting prowess leading the Inquisition to your door so that you’re now as versed in the arcane Ancient Truths as you are violence. Maybe you’re a humble apprentice turned adventurer, or the disgraced child of a noble family banished for your occult meddlings, with all the benefits those paths through life may bring. Regardless, your current predicament remains the same: you’ve been imprisoned for your past crimes. But an opportunity presents itself when the Apostatic Union, responsible for maintaining the world’s ban on god worship (lest they rise up once more), requests your help in exchange for your freedom.
And, yes, Dread Delusion is an RPG, albeit one that – with its perfunctory, often avoidable, combat and simplified collectible-based levelling system – is streamlined in a way that puts its propulsive focus on its stories. And this is a game in the thrall of stories; delicious, horrible wonder seeming to await wherever you roam. Early on, you’ll encounter a village known for its unique mushroom tea – capable of thrusting its drinkers into their own timestream for glimpses of their many possible futures; you’ll rest in the Wobbly Noggin tavern, miraculously named before a dead god’s falling head caved the roof in; you’ll encounter a castle of illusions whose ruler has agreed to a life of perpetual agony to save his subjects from a hideous curse. You’ll meet an exclusive order of skybound academics; hear tales of mechanical kings and rebelling machines in a not-too-distant clockwork kingdom; uncover a realm where the undead breed unliving meat to escape the moral quandaries of human-munching, and on it goes.
Dread Delusion is just fascinating; a witty, richly textured world of surprises that often plays like a dark fairy tale. And the fact so many quests are malleable, accommodating more than one approach on their way to different outcomes (those skills you learned in a past life aren’t for nothing, you know!), makes it all the more rewarding. And then there’s the other stuff: an alchemical potion crafting system; cartography; home ownership and decorating. And eventually, there’s even the chance to be the captain of your own customisable airship, meaning you can sate those dirigible delusions too.
So yes, I completely understand the hesitation; that looking at Dread Delusion might, for some at least, feel like having their eyeballs scraped with a razor blade – but please don’t let that put you off. True dark delights await visitors of the Oneiric Isles, so what better time for an adventure than now, as their Eldritch whispers finally reach Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch 2?
